Author: Nadege

‘Autumn is a second spring… where every leaf is a flower ‘ Perfect title. Funny that today I passed a shop with this quote printed on the window – just as I was taking a tea-break from finishing this blog post. The world does work in strange ways sometimes… Actually I took these photos and wrote a big chunk of this last month but forgot about it totally! So I’m[…]

Chestnuts – Castanea spp Go on a country walk this autumn and you’ll likely come across these prickly delicacies. This little lane just down the road from me is littered with these golden brown seasonal nuts. If I had a store house I’d probably have enough for the entire winter! Sadly, being in a houseshare, squirrelling away stocks isn’t really an option this year… I’ll spare my housemates the inconvenience[…]

Royal Mile Market Back in Edinburgh again! Oh I love this city… This time, I took a peek inside Royal Mile Market in the old town. I’ve walked past this many a time before without venturing in… thinking it would be the same old plastic tat. But what a nice surprise it turned out to be. Sadly, I’m still a few days away from payday so it was a window-shopping[…]

Very excited to have had an Edinburgh trip over the weekend, gave me a chance to stock up on some goodies from Napiers – Edinburgh’s famous Herbal Medicine shop. Though there is another ‘Napiers’ store in Glasgow, this shop is where it all started, over 150 years ago. Let me tell you a little bit more about this Scottish institution…. A Brief History of Napier’s Steeped in history, Napier’s was[…]

Urban Farm – Community – Education In the days leading up to a sombre September anniversary in NYC, the spotlight in today’s blog is focused on a heart-warming story of community in this mother of all cities. Oh & in case you are wondering: NO this has nothing to do with Gordon Ramsey! I too did question when I first read about it, esp as it is food related… But[…]

On my last work trip to NY I took a trip across the river to Brooklyn. Total contrast to the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan. Here you’ll find wide leafy streets, beautiful old houses (from the yesteryear where the wealthy of Manhattan used to spend vacations), art, indie, lots of ‘green’ projects around, independent shops, some fantastic organic/health food stores and last but not least… I found a beautiful herbal shop[…]

Ahhh the turquoise seas of the Indian Ocean… straight out of your dreams… Author Mark Twain wrote that ‘Heaven was copied after Mauritius’. I agree, he is not far wrong but it is also so much more than exclusive resorts and beautiful beaches. At the time, Mr Twain recalled it as being lively and culturally rich with “French, English, Chinese, Arabs, Africans …’’ and today this legacy lives on. Naturally[…]

Now politics in the UK has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, however I wanted to share something good. Now I initially wrote this post on ‘microbeads’ last year, but I’m re-posting it in the new website because in July, the UK government passed a bill that ensures that rinseable cosmetics containing microbeads will be off the shelves by summer 2018 – including those that claim[…]

This photo was taken a couple of years back in the summer of 2015, during my time as a volunteer with WWOOF (& no it has nothing to do with dogs! Stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). The reason for me sharing this pic & writing this post is that a few days ago I stumbled upon an article which I’d kept from 2 years ago, the very[…]

Today’s post is all about the BITTER… OK not the emo bitter kind – the therapeutic kind 😉 Yes there is such a thing, in herbal terms anyway. This post was actually inspired when I passed a little shop/cocktail bar in Manhattan specializing in Bitters only (photo above) tucked away in this urban jungle! So without further ado, here is a little intro into this well known class of herbal[…]